All the first appeals under the Value Addition Tax (VAT) and Central Sales Tax (CST), to be decided at the level of Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, which are filed by the dealers or appellant of Ludhiana will now be heard in Ludhiana itself. Such type of arrangement may also be made for other districts of the state as well.

According to Ashok Juneja, Chairman, and B R Kaushal, General Secretary, Punjab Tax Bar Association (PTBA), the said issue was decided by A Veenu Parsad, Excise and Taxation Commissioner (ETC), Punjab, on the plea of PTBA, which met him with the suggestions for smoothening the working of department.

In the meeting, along with other top officials of the department, Parampal Singh, DETC, HPS Ghotra, Piyush Kant Sharma and H L Bansal, AETCs, Ludhiana, were also present. Raj Paul Gupta, Vice-President and Tarlok Bhalla, Finance Secretary (PTBA) said the move would provide relief to those tax professionals, dealers, traders and industrialists who had to run to other cities and districts where these cases were fixed, Besides the cost of litigation will also come down.